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It all starts with a seed
 We all know that seeds are a precious resource for mankind. Food security, poverty eradication, human nutrition, environmental renewal, peace and stability—they all start with a seed.
Conscious of the tremendous importance of seed for rebuilding agriculture in countries affected by wars or natural disasters, CGIAR Centers have been providing targeted seed aid in several countries. For instance, to help farmers in southern Sudan—a region that has witnessed Africa’s longest-running civil war—the Africa Rice Center as part of a CGIAR international effort has this year sent seeds of rice varieties, especially NERICA, to the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) for evaluation and distribution in the region.
“As part of the activities under INGER-Africa, we have also been sending breeding material to the national agricultural program in Sudan. In fact, farmers there are already growing NERICAs,” stated Dr Guei.
CGIAR Centers’ efforts in rebuilding agriculture in countries affected by conflicts and natural disasters contribute to reducing hunger, preserving agro-biodiversity, strengthening human and institutional capacities, and making relief aid more efficient.
The vital importance of such efforts is corroborated by the Oslo-based International Peace Research Institute, which found that rehabilitation of agriculture is a central condition for reducing violence, because it contributes to reducing poverty—one of the root causes of conflicts.
CGIAR genebanks play a crucial role in mitigating the effects of conflicts and disasters by offering safe havens for storing seeds and providing farmers with the genetic resources they need to rebuild their agricultural production systems, thus serving as a source of food and income.
Increasingly aid agencies are recognizing the value of research Centers to identify suitable varieties for particular ecologies. In the past, they relied on massive seed shipments from abroad, often of varieties that were not resistant to local stresses or suited to local market demands.
The Genetic Resources Unit (GRU) of the Africa Rice Center has been instrumental in helping countries across Africa rebuild their rice biodiversity after conflicts by providing infusions of improved seed and by helping restore lost germplasm collections. From 1994 to 2002, about 10,000 rice varieties were restored in West Africa (Liberia and Sierra Leone).
In Eastern and Southern Africa, over 3,500 rice varieties/lines were sent to Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Rwanda between 1997-2002.
To reduce the severe food and seed shortage in western Côte d’Ivoire, which has been devastated by the Ivoirian crisis, seeds of rice varieties developed by the Center and its partners were donated to UN and non-governmental organizations for distribution to farmers as part of a ‘Seeds for Life’ project in 2003.
“We have adopted a 3-pronged strategy including a preventive germplasm collection approach to save seeds from conflict-prone areas,” Dr Guei said. In Côte d’Ivoire, for example, about a thousand landraces were collected in the year 2000 in an area that was later engulfed in civil war.
Special efforts are made to restore traditional varieties to their locations of origin as soon as possible with the help of GIS tools. The Center tries to ensure that its seed donations do not replace farmers’ traditional seed exchanges.
Ironically, when the Ivoirian crisis erupted in September 2002, the Center’s priceless rice collection based in the headquarters at M’be was itself at risk. “You can, therefore, understand our tremendous relief when we could retrieve the duplicate samples of our collection and store them in risk-free zones,” Dr Guei said.
The agricultural rebuilding effort is not limited to just seed aid or germplasm restoration. The Center has also participated in building national capacity in countries recovering from conflicts, such as in Rwanda, where national program staff were trained in participatory research and seed production.
As part of its new medium-term plan (MTP), the Center has included a project to develop long-term, systematic approaches that would help build stronger foundations of knowledge and policies to mitigate the effects of epidemics, disasters and conflicts.
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